


Together Apart

by hulklinging



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Reunions, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Female Character, Transphobia, the transphobia is mild too but again safety, the twins got split up as kids, they're brief but tagging them for safety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 12:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11578143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: Lup had been a 'we', when her brother had been here. Then he disappeared. It takes her years to learn how to be a part of something again, but she's doing her best.





	Together Apart

On the really bad days, Lup hates that she's a twin.

Because if she wasn't a twin? If she was truly alone in the world? Well. Things would be different. Her story, shorter.

But her story doesn't just belong to her. And even though he's not here right now, her brother exists. Somewhere, out in the world. So on the worst days she curls up on herself as much as she can, lets one hand go numb enough that it doesn't feel like her own anymore, and she holds it as tight as she can.

"I'll find you," she whispers. "I promise." It's the closest she ever gets to praying.

The scary part is that he hasn't found her yet. She's made herself easy to find. Her case was a well-distributed headline, after all. She still gets recognized every once in a while, even now, when everything about her has changed. People will look at her, tilt their head just so.

"You look familiar," they'll say. And she knows what it's from, remembers how they always called her eyes soulful, said they had a look that didn't match her young face, like she was born with a century already under her belt.

(sometimes they remember that the papers used to call her 'The Boy With The Umbrella', and they want to know what else she was born with. These are the ones she does her best to eviscerate. Publicly)

She usually just laughs it off. "I have that kind of face," she says, even though she doesn't. Sometimes, when she has hope to spare, she tells them she has a twin brother. "Maybe you know him?"

They never do.

She's made herself easy to find. When she was entered into the system, she insisted Lup was the name she was born with. It was just a nickname - if her and Taako ever had names on some birth certificate, they certainly weren't aware of them - but they didn't push too hard. It was the name in all the papers, anyway. But 'Lup' is an easier sell than Taako. There's no one named Taako, not legally, not in Phandalin. She tries, but there's only so much searching one can do, if you don't know the name of who you're looking for.

Lup has a notebook, and in it is a list. She first wrote in it when she was twelve, she thinks. Its got her name in shaky letters, and then below that, 'find my brother.'

The list has grown and grown, sometimes with simple requests ('a dress'), some things a little bigger ('a job', and most recently crossed out 'a room of my own'). But the top of her list has never changed. Things get better, she has less and less of those worst days, and crossing that first thing off the list feels more and more urgent. As soon as she has some money to spare, she'll hire a private investigator. That's what they're good at, right? Finding people? She has a jar, jokingly labeled her Taako Fund. It sits in the back of her closet, right next to an old umbrella that once, almost fifteen years ago now, was a little girl's only possession. She had tried to hit the officer that approached her. They were supposed to run, but Taako had always been better at running than her. She preferred a frontal approach.

"Stop! Let go of me!" She shouted. She had promised to wait right here, and she wasn't moving.

It took two officers to disarm her, wrapping heavy blankets around her as they brought her to the station and asked her about her parents, where she was staying. All she had was her brother, she kept telling them. And they'd taken her away from that.

But the officers told her that they'd left one of their own waiting for her, and no brother had ever showed.

The jar is empty now, dumped out to help cover her damage deposit. But she has her own room here, and a job she doesn't totally hate, and her roommate had no spark of recognition in her eyes and doesn't care about the pills Lup takes every morning.

Her name's Killian, and she's a combat instructor and aspiring stuntwoman. When Lup had first met her, checking out the room she was renting in her apartment, she'd been just a little intimidated. Not that she'd ever admit it, of course. But Killian was kind, tidy, and minded her own business most of the time. The only time she hadn't was one night, when Lup had gotten home even later than usual from the bar she worked at. There'd been a fight outside the bar, which meant police and statements and all that fun stuff. Lup had been dead on her feet, hardly able to get her key into the lock, she was that tired.

When she'd opened the door, Killian had been sitting on the couch. The TV was on but the sound was off; and Killian wasn't watching it anyway, seemingly absorbed in her phone. When Lup walked in, she'd raised her head.

"You good?"

Lup, whose shoulders had tensed up at seeing the other girl waiting for her, was surprised. "What?Oh, yeah, there was just a fight at the bar, no biggie."

Killian eyed her.

"I'm usually up late," she said. "If you ever get stuck at the bar that long again, give me a call. I can walk home with you."

Lup stared at her, finding herself without words for maybe the first time in her life.

"I can take care of myself," she finally said, the confidence in the statement hardly bravado at all.

Killian nods. "I don't doubt it. But sometimes the world sucks, right? And two is always better than one."

Lup blinked. She'd been a 'one' ever since Taako had disappeared. She thought that would be the case until she found him again.

"...thanks, Killian."

She hasn't taken the girl up on her offer yet, but she thinks she will if she gets stuck at work that long again.

Tonight might be one of those nights. It's a Thursday, so it should be a quiet one, but there's a boy at her bar. He keeps eyeing her, and she doesn't know why but she also doesn't like it. She remembers Killian's offer, but she also remembers that she hates asking for help, so she opts for the direct approach first.

"You're staring," she tells the man. He blushes, but doesn't try to deny it.

"Sorry," he says, and his voice is not what she was expecting. She expected some slimy attempt at charming, or that over-the-top rumble some guys get when they're drunk and accused of something. His voice is raspy, and cautious, and honestly? A little nerdy. Cute. "You look..."

She resists the urge to roll her eyes. "Familiar?"

"Resplendent." There's no mockery in his tone, only this quiet earnestness.

She believes him. She's not sure what to do with that information.

"Name's Lup," she says. "Want another drink, nerd?"

He shrinks a little at the last word, but still smiles and nods at the question.

"I'm Barry," he says.

"Didn't ask," she replies, but she doesn't make him pay for his last drink, either. She lies to herself and says she does it for the laugh she gets at the shock on his face, but she's got a silly little smile on her face all the way home.

No one is replacing her brother, just like nothing can quite full the emptiness that's lived in her chest since she lost him. But she's learning, slowly but surely, that it's okay to share her life with others.

Barry comes to the bar at least once a week. He's nice, never demanding of her time, always so endearingly surprised whenever she stops to chat. He's an engineer and a scientist, working on his Master's, and when he's excited he talks with his hands and Lup has a hard time looking away.

"What?" She shouts.

"Sorry! I meant the-" Someone is yelling at the other barkeep, and it drowns Barry out. It's the third time she's asked him to repeat himself.

"This is ridiculous!" She yells. "Give me your arm!"

She scrawls her number on it. It's a shitty flip phone, and it's got exactly one contact in it, but when Barry texts her later that night, after her shift, she saves his number as quickly as her clumsy fingers can do so.

Two contacts, Barry and Killian. Suddenly, she's got something in her eye.

Back when they were kids, and still a plural 'they' instead of a singular 'she,' they had an aunt. She wasn't actually their aunt, thinking back on it now. More like a cousin, and probably at least once removed. But she somehow tracked them to the group home they'd been staying in, and whisked them away for nine amazing months.

"This isn't forever," she had said, right from the beginning. "I'm sick, and I've not always been a good person. So I'm using you two to make sure I get to Heaven, okay?"

"We're only here for the food," Taako replied loftily, like they hadn't spent half the night marvelling at having a room to themselves, at a chest of drawers to put their new thrift store clothes in.

Their aunt was a good cook. She was also a good teacher. She insisted that everything she cooked, they learned to make themselves. She was like that. She would do something for them, 'but only once, so watch how I do it, okay?' Trying to teach them all she could, in her own way. Perhaps she could see in their clenched fists and their weary eyes that they'd learned to distrust kindness, that kindness frightened them. Lup and Taako loved her as best they knew how.

She was the first person, outside of her brother, to understand that Lup was a girl. She pulled her aside one day and placed a package in her hands. It was wrapped in newspaper, and if Lup tries she can still remember the exact shape and weight of it.

"You already know life won't be easy for you. For either of you." There was never any pity in her aunt's voice, still strong like steel even as the sickness ate her from the inside. "You don't need me to tell you that. So I'll tell you something different."

Lup listened, clutching the package to her chest.

"Life is going to be hard for you anyways, so don't compromise any piece of yourself. Not for anything. People might try to say that things will be easier if you do this, or don't do that. Fuck people like that. They're a waste of your time. Life sucks, sometimes, so don't waste any time not being true to yourself. Got it?"

Lup nodded. She remembered thinking that she wasn't sure if she knew there was a Heaven, but if there was, her auntie deserved it more than most.

(In the package was a skirt. Unlike everything else their aunt had given them, it had been bought new. It was red, and it sparkled, and although Lup grew out of it within a few years, it's one of the things she managed to hold on to. She wants to make something out of it, now that she's done growing. It was a long skirt, surely there's enough fabric there for something. She's just not sure what yet)

They don't let them in to see their aunt, once she's taken to the hospital for the last time. The nurse told them it was something their aunt had requested. Lup had clenched her fists, ready to fight anyone who dared stand in her way, but it was Taako who had understood. Their aunt was giving them time to leave, while everyone was distracted. They could go, if they wanted. Disappear. Not get stuck in another home, with a bunch of kids who were also scared of kindness, who had never had someone like their aunt to teach them how to cook and how to have a family, even for just a little while.

By the time their aunt had passed, they had filled their little backpacks with everything they could carry, and disappeared. Taako had always been better at running.

Lup hasn't cooked in a long time. But when Barry invites her to brunch, and the place he takes her has a line out the door, she turns to him and fights down the butterflies in her stomach.

"How about... We go shopping," she says, cutting off another apology. "And I make you some wicked pancakes, babe?"

She's never called anyone babe before. The world feels weird in her mouth, but not bad. And the grin on Barry is one of the prettiest things she's ever seen.

The next time he comes over, it's for dinner. They'd gone out a bunch, to cafes and to parks and once Barry had snuck her into his lab. That's where they'd kissed for the first time, feet away from some half-finished prototype of an engine he was designing. She'd been asking questions, frustrated with her patchy knowledge from her inconsistent at best schooling, wanting to understand everything she could. And he'd been answering, never belittling her for not knowing. And suddenly she got it, got the theory behind it, understood how it all connected, and she'd answered her own question. Barry had looked at her and called her brilliant, with utter adoration in his eyes, and she'd had to kiss him. She couldn't leave him there, looking like that.

"Nerd," she'd said, afterwards. She was trying to hide how breathless she felt.

He'd laughed, and Lup loved how it echoed in this space. "It, uh, takes one to know one, I guess," he'd said, and that was enough to earn him another kiss.

They'd gone out a lot, but never for dinner. She invites him over, nerves making her invitation sound mocking. She knows she has nothing to worry about. It's Barry. But the nerves won't leave her alone.

She dresses up, wears a tight red dress that she found at Goodwill and painstakingly altered. She knows she looks good in it, not just because Killian said so but because she feels it. Barry mutters something about being underdressed, when she opens the door for him, but the blue of his button up brings out his eyes, and he got her a flower, just a single one, like they're on some TV show.

When dinner is over, she invites him to stay. He says yes.

Lup's been living here for six months, but there's still one box tucked away in her closet, and she still keeps her pills and other toiletries in her backpack. The next morning, after breakfast with Barry and a kiss goodbye, she unpacks that last box. She puts her pills in her shitty little nightstand, and she finds the mug she bought months ago for this exact purpose and puts her toothbrush and toothpaste in it, puts it in the bathroom.

It's taken her almost twenty-four years, but Lup's finally learned how to stay.

A few days later, Killian's girlfriend comes home. Lup knew that Killian had a girlfriend, often heard her talking to her over Skype. There's a picture of the two of them on the fridge, Killian's arm around a smaller, darker girl with a shaved head and a big toothy grin. Lup's not too worried that they won't get along, and not just because she knows they have a lot in common. Killian had mentioned that Carey was also trans a few months ago, over one very busy weekend where Carey had called Killian asking her to express-ship her new breast forms, _please,_ because Carey went and lost one while _climbing a totally safe rock face where she maybe kinda sort slipped and fell down a waterfall a bit don't worry about it Killian we're fine Magnus only broke a finger or two._

"She's backpacking through Europe and Asia with her best friend," Killian had explained, after Lup had helped Killian pick up and send off the breast forms. "And he's a great guy, but they don't always... They don't always stop to think, is all."

Lup, who has often been accused of thinking only after she throws the first punch, had laughed loudly enough that it had Killian eyeing her suspiciously.

"Now that I think of it, you two might get along a little too well."

Lup has never seen Killian like this, nervously adjusting the couch pillows for the tenth time.

"Didn't you live together before?"

"Well, yeah." Killian's dark skin doesn't completely disguise her blush. "But as roommates. We only got together like, two weeks before they left."

"Oh!" Makes sense why Killian had an empty room, then. "I'm sure I can find another place that's renting, if you-"

"Nope!" Killian points a finger at her accusingly. "I like you. You're a good roommate, and you can cook, which puts you a step ahead of pretty much everyone else. And three people splitting the rent on this place is going to be awesome. The only reason for you to leave is if you want to."

"And I don't. Want to, that is." She says it maybe a touch too fast to be natural, but Killian doesn't comment on it, only smiles.

"Thought so. So you stay put. I'm just... Excited to see her."

And she looks so soft, softer than she's ever seen Killian, that Lup can't even bring herself to make fun of her.

Much.

"Do the other guys at the gym know you're this much of a sap?" She teases.

"They did, but I beat the knowledge out of them," Killian replies, and then there's a knock on the door and it's opening and a blur of bright blue comes bolting into the room to collide with Killian. Carey is laughing in between kisses, which she's bestowing on any bit of Killian she can reach. Her buzzcut has grown out and been dyed bright blue, looking all the brighter against her dark skin, and she shrieks with glee as Killian picks her up and spins her.

Lup moves towards the door. She meant to stay long enough to properly say hello, but she already feels like she's intruding, and she's got plans with Barry tonight anyway. But the movement must draw Carey's eye, because she pulls away from Killian just enough to get a good look at her.

"Taako?" She says, voice thick with confusion.

Lup freezes. Her whole body has gone cold, and she feels like her edges have gone whispy, like with that one word Carey cast a spell on her, one that is pulling at every line of her, making the edges of her world go black.

"What did you call me?" She manages to get out. Her voice sounds wrong in her ears. "What did you say?"

She's been looking for him her whole life. Doing everything she could. And now, in the living room she shares, she hears her brother's name on someone else's lips.

It's more than she can stand.

"Do you know him?" She asks, desperate now. "Is he alright? Can you take me to him, please?"

Lup has never begged. She barely even knows how to ask for anything. She learned the hard way that you have to take what you can, to not depend on anyone for anything. But she's begging now.

Carey and Killian are staring.

"You do look a lot like him," Killian says. She sounds shell shocked. "I've only met him once, I didn't notice until now..."

"You know Taako?" Carey asks, and Lup laughs, because that's a tricky question, isn't it. That's a question with no answer, or maybe fifteen years of them.

"He's my brother," is what she goes with, because that will always be the truth. "I haven't seen him since we were almost nine."

Carey pulls out her phone and brings it to her ear, Killian takes Lup's phone from her shaking hand and shoots a quick text off to Barry. It's all Lup can do to stay standing.

He's alive. He's okay. He's nearby.

"I found you," she whispers, hardly caring about what's moving around her. "I found you."

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, if you like my writing and stories about queer folk surviving shit as a genre, you should totally check out [Crossing Wires](https://crossingwirespodcast.tumblr.com/post/163237947378/crossing-wires-episode-one-crossing-wires), a podcast I'm co-writing about connection at the end of the world!
> 
> Thanks for reading. <3


End file.
